


Amadáin Mhór

by Papershrine



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Dream Shenanigans, Horror Elements, M/M, Slow Burn, canon character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-14 06:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4553406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papershrine/pseuds/Papershrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Ronan Lynch wanders too far, and Adam Parrish is sent to bring him back.</p><p> </p><p>  <i> We have lingered in the chambers of the sea</i><br/><i>By sea-maids wreathed in sea-weed, red and brown</i><br/><i>'till human voices wake us, and we drown</i><br/>- T. S. Elliot</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fool and Magician

**Author's Note:**

> With special thanks to the illustrious Teapotfantasies for her help in editing and translation. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Song for this chapter is The Old Ways by Loreena Mckennit.

Rhododendrons. Arcs of them, twisted trunks like columns below a ceiling of flat, broad leaves. Dusty golden light slanting through at odd angles. The ground was soft and sloping, brown leaf matter muffling each footstep. Barefoot, Ronan slipped slowly through the trees, tripping occasionally over the gnarled steps of exposed roots. He was following a trail of glyphs, carved pale and weeping into bark. Here, a line. Here, a five-pointed star. Here, a sideways half-moon, an inverted cross. Approaching the last one, Ronan stumbled and grabbed a low branch for support. His fingers came away cold and wet, covered in what looked like rust.

He was looking for something. Something important, something --

As he turned away, he noticed for the first time that something was written on his left hand. In his handwriting, the strokes thick and black: 22 Minor 56/14. He stared at it in dull confusion-- had that always been there? Fucking dreams.

Something tugged at the back of his mind, something insistent and soft. He needed to find -- but what was --

 _Donum,_ the trees murmured, but their voices seemed raspy and far away. _Donum amantem tibi._

A gift for your beloved.

That’s right. Adam.

Ronan pushed aside a cluster of white, heady-smelling flowers, absent-mindedly breaking one off and twirling it between his fingers. A sudden wind swept through the branches, carrying with it the scents of rain and leaf mold. Ronan paused to consider this; he’d never smelled things in dreams before, now that he thought of it, not even in the most vivid nightmares. When he focused he could even feel the cold – really feel it, not just the idea of it – that came with the unsettling of the air.

Now that he thought of it, he’d never been in this part of Cabeswater, either.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked around again, just in case the night terrors were lurking in the shadows of the twisted trees. The coast seemed clear, however, and he paused to tuck the flower into the pocket of his loose black pants before starting off again.

The ground became steeper, the trees closer together. Ronan pressed on, ignoring the way that twigs caught at his clothes and snapped against his arms when he reached out to move them aside.

The rushing of the wind was in his ears, louder, louder. Something small and red darted across his path and away into the underbrush. Ronan jumped at the movement, heart pounding, and sped up.

The creek was a thin, dark scar across the forest floor, sudden and deep. Ronan stuttered to a halt in front of it, feet sliding against damp rock. The water made no sound as it cascaded through the crevice, glittering. Ronan knelt, felt the spray on his face, and realized with a sudden jolt that it was not water at all, but liquid glass.  
He leaned forward, mesmerized. That flicker – was that a fish? He reached out, fingertips skimming the surface. The liquid was cool to the touch and impossibly soft; he trailed his fingers across it, watching little eddies form.

 _Greywaren,_ the trees whispered; they very far away, now. _Cavens, greywaren!_

Ronan leaned further, resting his palm on a damp rock for balance. The current went deep enough that he could not see a bottom. Small, delicately frilled creatures darted in and out of the shadows, tiny mouths gaping. Ronan knew, in the inexplicable way of dreams, that they were slowly drowning.

The wind picked up. Nearby, bells rang out. There was a strange, snuffling noise, like a horse preparing to gallop. Ronan looked up. He caught only a brief glimpse of dark flanks and red cloth; then his hand slipped and he was falling, face first, into the creek.

He did not stop falling.

 ***

 

The phone would not stop ringing.

Adam groaned, and rolled over onto his side. For a few, disorienting seconds, he thought he was back in his old house. Then he realized that the sound was coming from Ronan’s cell, abandoned after his last overnight stay. The thin strips of sky he could see through the blinds were orange-grey; the dollar store clock on his bedside table read 5:23. He’d been asleep for all of 3 hours.

Cursing under his breath, he fumbled blindly on the overturned bin that served as a nightstand and grabbed at the phone.

“‘Ello?” He muttered, rolling on to his side.

There was a crackle of static, and then --

“Adam, it’s Gansey. Thank God you’re awake, I’ve been trying for --”

Adam sat up and ran his fingers through his tousled hair. In the pre-dawn the shadows of his scant furniture were blurry, amorphous things, swallowing up swaths of white walls and bare wooden floors.

“‘S five in the mornin’, you ass,” he muttered. “Some of us actually need sleep to live.”

Gansey’s silence crackled loudly, the bad connection flaring and ebbing with the pulsing of the ley line. Adam could feel it now, a low tidal tug in the back of his mind, constant, almost reassuring.

“Look, I’m opening the shop this mornin’ and there’s a test on Monday. I don’t have time...” Adam yawned. In the background, he could make out hushed women’s voices, almost drowned out by static. Finally, Gansey said,

“It’s Ronan. He. Ah, he won’t wake up.”

“Pour ice water on his head.”

“Adam.”

Adam swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. The bare floor was cold and clammy against his feet. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he grimaced.

“He -- he won’t wake up, and I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s some kind of dream thing, or, or if he’s sick, or in trouble. Chainsaw was screaming. I didn’t know what to do, Adam.”

Gansey’s voice was careful, the vowels clipped and controlled. Adam said,

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Blue’s,” Gansey replied, and the way his voice wrapped around her name didn’t even sting. “The psychics are trying to come up with a plan.”

As if on cue, someone in the background -- Adam thought he recognized Calla -- snapped ‘Oh, don’t be stupid!’ loud enough for the connection to pick up.

“Great,” Adam said, “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

He hung up the phone, and reached for his shoes.

Five minutes proved to be an overestimate -- the hondoyota was almost out of gas, and construction still hadn’t finished on Chestnut. By the time that Adam turned squealing into the driveway at 300 Fox Way, the sun was starting to peak out through the trees, and Gansey had tried to call him again. Twice. Adam took the front steps two at a time, and raised his hand to knock.

The door swung open. Blue’s cousin stood framed in the doorway, dressed in dangerously short shorts and a flimsy green camisole. Adam swallowed.

“Great,” she said, before he could say anything, “another one. They’re waiting for you upstairs.”

She yawned archly, with catlike indifference, and turned back into the house. Her hips swung artfully as she walked.

It seemed like every light in the house had been turned on, angry-bright after the dim pre-dawn outside. Left on his own, Adam followed the sound of raised voices up the narrow staircase to the second floor.

He found Blue and Gansey huddled in a bedroom that he knew at once had been Persephone’s, watching with wide eyes as Calla paced angrily in front of them, hands thrust in the air. Blue’s mother stood leaning against the low desk, arms crossed, her lips pressed into a thin long. And on the bed.

On the bed was Ronan, limp, skin paler than usual against the paisley sheets. His eyes were closed. A black lump sat on his bare chest, tucked below his breastbone. After a second, Adam realized that it was Chainsaw.

He felt sick.

“-- Since he was a child!” Calla was saying, her voice a decibel louder and an octave higher than the last time Adam had heard it. “No training, no, nothing responsible. And now he’s in over his head, and we’re --”

“Calla,” Blue said firmly, taking a step forward. She was wearing an old fashioned nightgown that looked like the lace had been burnt off of it. Calla rounded on her.  
“What?” she snapped, stopping.

“He’s here,” she said. “Hey, Adam.”

“... Hi.”

Gansey started, noticing Adam for the first time. His hair was a mess from where he’d been running his fingers through it. There were thin lines between his eyebrows and at the corners of his eyes, but his face was set. Pleasantly blank. If Adam didn’t know better, he’d think nothing was wrong.

“Good thing you got here all right,” Gansey said. He moved past Calla and over to Adam, leaning against the doorframe. His glasses were crooked on his nose. “I was going to come get you myself before Blue reminded me that Ronan left his phone at your place.” He looked at Blue with bleeding adoration, something that Adam steadfastly ignored.

“What happened?”

Gansey’s smile became stretched around the edges. He jammed his hands in his pockets and stared up at the wooden ceiling.

“I was working,” he said, “finishing up that old antiques place, you know. Chainsaw started screeching like something infernal. So I went to Ronan’s room, and he was…” He took a deep breath. “He was like that, actually. Wouldn’t move.”

Adam could and could not imagine it. Gansey, in the Monmouth half-light, kneeling by Ronan’s bed, hand on Ronan’s shoulder, shaking him -- Chainsaw’s harsh keening -- Ronan, surrounded by clutter, his mouth slightly open, no light in his vicious eyes --

He did not look at Ronan’s body, lying in front of him on the bed. He did not look at the way Gansey’s shoulders were held tight, as if his spine would snap if it so much as bent. He said,

“So you called Blue.”

“No, actually,” Blue said. “He didn’t. He just showed up.”

Calla made a very rude noise.

“What do we do? Take him to the hospital?”

“He’s not sick,” Blue’s mother said. There were bags under her eyes, and a sallow cast to her bronze skin. “He’s… lost.”

Of course. Because God forbid Ronan Lynch do anything as simple as get sick. Adam was tempted to punch the body on the bed, but one glance changed his mind. He’d never seen Ronan look so small, that was the thing. Whatever room Ronan Lynch was in, he dominated, easy as breathing.

“Lost where? How do we get him back?”

“As far as we can tell, he’s in the dreaming. Wherever he goes when he takes things, it’s connected to the other dream realms. He must have wandered too far, and now he can’t… come back.”

She looked deeply sorry, and very tired. Adam bit his lip.

“We go after him,” he said. “Cabeswater is a dream, right? I can ask it to -- to take me to where he is.”

Blue and Gansey exchanged glances, and Adam realized that they’d been discussing this before he arrived.

“That’s the idea, yes. I volunteered,” Gansey said, “but…”

“Bees,” Adam said. When they all looked at him, he added, “Ronan sometimes dreams about bees. It would be too dangerous.”

Gansey nodded miserably.

“Besides,” Adam added, “I’m the magician. It has to be me.”

Blue opened her mouth, eyes fierce, but Calla beat her too it.

“Boys!” She said, throwing her hands up. “Children! Always thinking that the world revolves around you! I don’t care how many magical forests you’ve seduced, you have no idea what you’re getting into. This is old shit that you’re meddling with, Mr. Parrish. All of you. But you just have to barge in there, fucking around and getting surprised when something goes wrong.” She jabbed a finger at Ronan. “This one’s lucky he hasn’t gotten all of us killed! Treating ancient mysteries like a playground he can vandalize!”

“Calla,” Blue’s mother said quietly. Adam took a step forward and planted his feet.

“You don’t have to help me,” he said quietly. “No one else can do this, though. I’m the magician. Cabeswater will listen to me. I don’t need any of you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gansey said. “Of course we’ll help.”

Calla looked at Blue’s mother, who raised her chin.

“We have to do something,” she said. “We have to try.”

“Right,” Calla snarled. “Because that worked out so well the last time.”

They stared at each other for a few, suspended seconds. Adam looked away, painfully aware of the space between them. The empty patch of air just the right size for another woman.

“... Fine,” Calla said finally, plum lips twisting in defeat. She turned on her bare heel and marched towards the door. Blue smiled at her mother, who smiled back.

“Children!” Calla muttered again, disappearing into the hallway. A few moments later she returned, holding a box of candles under one arm. “Right. We’ll need one white, one grey, and one blue. Also, red string. You -- Coca-Cola boy -- you’re going to need some of Snake’s clothes.”

“Why?” Adam asked. Calla’s smile was sharp and sardonic.

“Traditionally, the ritual is performed naked. I figured you’d like this better.”

“The idea is to make you feel closer to the person whose dreams you’re entering,” Blue’s mother explained tiredly, leaning forward. “It makes traveling easier. I’ll get the string. And your tea. We’ll need to smudge you, for purity...”

Adam, Gansey and Blue all looked at each other. Finally, Gansey said,

“I can run you over to Monmouth. For the clothes.”

“Oh, no,” Calla said, “Coca-Cola’s staying here. Blue, you too -- I’ll need your help to lay the groundwork.”

“What should I do?” Adam said. Blue’s mother looked at him and smiled.

“Take a bath,” she said.

The next hour found Adam freshly clean, smelling of burnt sage, and swimming in Ronan’s tank top and black jeans. The fabric was expensive-soft against his skin. It smelled like whisky, gasoline and sweat. Calla had also insisted that he wear Ronan’s underwear or none at all; he was trying very hard not to think about that.

He took the tea that Blue’s mother handed him and gulped it down, scalding his tongue. It tasted milder than he expected, almost sweet. She took the chipped floral teacup back and squeezed his shoulder briefly, a hint of reassurance that felt less annoying than he expected.

He lay down on the narrow twin bed beside Ronan, their shoulders not quite touching. Chainsaw’s head on Ronan’s clavicle rose and fell with his slow, steady breathing. In profile, it was harder to tell that something was wrong. His thin lips were parted slightly, revealing a hint of white teeth. The sharp edge of his cheekbones was mellowed by the dim dawn light.

“Hey,” Adam said to Gansey, who was hovering nearby and looking aggressively not worried, “Could you call in for me? I have work today.”

Gansey nodded.

“I’ll tell them you’re sick,” he said. “No, actually, I’ll tell them you have a family emergency. Maiden aunt.”

“Ronan would like that. Will like that.”

“Last chance to back out,” Calla said. She stood at the foot of the bed, grey candle in one hand. In the other, she held a plastic bic lighter. Adam gave her a withering look, and took Ronan’s hand in his own. The other boy’s fingers were clammy and cold. He’d never really looked at Ronan’s hands before, he realized. His fingers were slender and sharp, his nails all different lengths. There was scarring on his knuckles, rough to the touch.

“Well, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Blue came to stand on Adam’s left. She held the white candle tightly in her fist, face set in determined concentration.

“Good luck,” she said. Her smile was ragged.

“Thanks.”

“Raise your hand,” her mother said. “No, the other one. With his. There we go.”

She looped the red thread around their joined wrists three times and tied it off with a neat bow. With a nod at her handy work, she took up the blue candle, and moved to stand at Ronan’s right.

“Listen,” she said, “before we begin. Just know that dreams are dangerous things. You’ll be fully conscious of where and who you are; hold on to that. It’ll help you when things start getting weird. Well. Weird-er.”

Adam nodded.

Through the window, he could see the sun beginning to rise through the tree branches. Dim, dappled shadows shifted and spun around the room. Calla lit her candle, then touched it to Blue’s, then to Maura’s. Softly, she began to sing.

Adam closed his eyes.

A deep, heady feeling bloomed in the pit of his stomach, spreading upward. Blue’s mother joined in singing, voice strong and piercing. Then Blue, her scratchy alto faltering at first before taking on weight of its own.

They were singing in a language Adam had never heard but felt he should know anyway, a sensation like trying to remember your own name. Then Adam lost track of the words, lost track of sounds, of the rub of sheets against his back. He was swimming in the smell of gasoline and sweat, in the deep red of the back of his eyelids, the unexplored corners of his mind.

He could feel his pulse in his eyes, in his palm -- he could feel the pulsing of the ley line, tearing through him like a living thing -- he could feel another pulse beside his, a heartbeat slow and strong echoing his own --

He could feel glass against his face and feathers on his breast and he was falling, falling, falling.


	2. Priestess and Empress, Emperor and Hierophant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. There have been some MAJOR changes in my life since the last chapter was posted. Your patience is appreciated.   
> In this chapter: Warnings for homophobic slurs and some mild body horror.   
> Thanks, as always, to my beautiful beta, the light of my life, my favorite nerd.

_“Is that it, then?”_

_“For now. Ugh, I’d forgotten how exhausting that can be. It’s been what, 20 years?”_

_“Did it work?”_   
_“Oh, yes.”_

_“Will he be ok? Is he safe?”_

_“Right now, yes. Ugh, I need a damn drink.”_

_“... Mrs. Sargent? Thank you.”_   
_“You’re welcome. I’ll second you on that drink, Calla. No, Blue, you may not.”_

_“What do we do now?”_

_“... We wait.”_

 

The first thing that Adam noticed was the sound.

It ebbed and faded with the wind, a clattering moan. Bones in the wind, a hypothermiac’s teeth. Then there was the smell, so strong he almost gagged -- sweet leaf mold, mist and moss. For a few seconds he was lost, swamped in vertigo. His vision was blurred; he dug his fingers into his eyes, and was shocked to realize that here, in this dream, that hurt. This did not feel like the kind of dream things were supposed to hurt in.

When he opened his eyes again, the ground was covered in viscera. Adam jumped to his feet, and hit his head against a low hanging tree branch. This also hurt; he cursed, long and low, under his breath. Then he looked down again, and almost laughed.

What he had taken for gore was actually mushrooms. A carpet of them, bright red caps glistening wetly in the dim golden light, spilled out across the sloping ground. Bare white trees rose up between them, branches thin and gnarled.

Adam turned, and saw that he’d come to at the foot of one such tree. It was bigger than the rest and impressively bent at all right angles, the bark twisted around small lumpish knots. This tree was the center of the forest, the first tree, the connection between awake and asleep. Adam knew this because it was a dream. He knew it in the same way that he knew that this forest was related to Cabeswater but not of it, and that any direction he took would end in the same place.

He went West, mushrooms bursting into clouds of rust-colored spores under his feet. They felt squishy and damp, like walking on crumbly sponges. The layout of the trees repeated every few yards, like a perfectly looped video.

He had been walking for exactly 4 minutes and 22 seconds when he realized that someone was following him. Their footsteps thudding softly in the echo of his own; he could feel breath on the back of his neck, slightly warmer than the wind. When Adam turned, the only evidence he was right was a widened trail of mushrooms, freshly pressed spores floating in the cool air.

The smell of decay grew stronger. Adam picked up his pace, darting furtive glances behind him as he went. .

The wind picked up, and the clattering grew louder. A black bird -- the first other animal Adam had seen in this place -- lept out of a tree to his left, calling angrily. Its beak glinted in the light like a crescent moon.

The further Adam walked, the more slender and spaced out the trees became. Chunks of metal -- old bicycles, fallen beams -- rose through the carpet of fungi, lumped together like burial mounds. Adam lost track of how long he'd been walking. The thing following him seemed to be getting closer. Adam could hear its footsteps clearly now, as well as a dry rustling noise, like feathers or the pages of a book being flipped. He found a stick the perfect size for a staff leaning against an old adding machine and took it with him, ignoring the way that the strange small knots bit into the skin of his palm.

 _Adam,_ the trees whispered, _Adam._

And the thing behind him screamed.

Heart pounding in his throat Adam whirled, new weapon raised, and caught a glimpse of oily wings and too many beaks before it was gone, flickering to the side and into the shadows. With a sick shudder, Adam remembered the body of the thing in Ronan's car.

Dreams are dangerous, he remembered Calla saying. You have no idea what you’re getting into.

"Fuck," Adam said. He looked down. His bare feet had turned brown from spores. The color spiraled up his legs like feelers, holding him to the earth. He pressed a hand to his chest and willed his heart to stop pounding so he could think.

"You shouldn't be here." 

"Jesus!" Adam snapped, jerking around. A girl, small and unassuming, stood behind him. Her blond hair was mostly hidden by a grey and white starred skullcap. Her pale blue eyes were very wide, and very sad. The black bird from earlier sat on her shoulder, preening.

She didn't look like a threat, but Adam kept a hand on his stick, just in case.

"You shouldn't be here," the girl repeated anxiously, taking a step forward. "He wouldn't want you here. Nobody else has been here since..."

The bird pecked angrily at her shoulder and she fell silent, gnawing at her lower lip.

"Who wouldn't? Ronan?"

The girl nodded.

“You’re one of his, aren’t you? A dream construct.”

She nodded again. Having made the connection, Adam noticed how much of Aurora Lynch there was in the slope of her shoulders and the soft curve of her jaw.

"What’s your name?" He said. The girl tilted her head. The raven did the same; seeing the same gesture on both human and animal was disquieting for a reason Adam couldn’t quite name.

"He calls me Orphan Girl," she said. Adam’s mouth twisted wryly. Orphan Girl, he thought, of course. Leave it to Ronan.

You're one of Ronan's dreams," he said again. The black bird twitched, kneading the fabric of her shapeless blue sweater with its claws. "Do you know where he’s gone?"

There was a pause, in which Orphan Girl looked at the ground and Adam looked at Orphan Girl. If he were Gansey, Adam thought with a touch of hysteria, he would give her a nickname, like Annie. But there were many ways in which Adam was not like Gansey, and it did not feel right, to tamper with one of Ronan's things.

The Orphan Girl shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again.

"I don't know where he is," she said finally. At the same time, the bird said, "I don't know where he isn't."

Its voice was soft, and melodious, and sounded like Adam's third grade teacher. Adam supposed that he should be surprised by this. He wasn’t.

"We know where part of him is," Orphan Girl said softly. "Echoes and splinters."

"Echoes," the bird agreed. "He is in the dreaming, and he is not in the dreaming.”

"Inside himself and outside himself. I could show you a part of him."

"Yes," Adam said. Then he remembered his manners and added, "please."

"It's very far away," Orphan Girl said.

"It's right beside you," said the bird.

"Dreaming is lots of little places. There's you, and there's other people, and then there are the inbetweens."

"Cabeswater," Adam said. Orphan Girl nodded.

"Cabeswater, yes. But also the sidhe, the Isle of Glass Apples, the neverword crag. He is... Between them."

"Two places at once," the bird chimed in. "Two and ten and twenty. Twenty two and fifty six and fourteen."

"So we get him back," Adam said. The riddling was starting to give him a headache. Him, who took orders from mythical trees on a regular basis. "We find the parts and put them back together."

"It's going to be dangerous," Orphan Girl said.

"Yes. I know. And, frankly, I don't care."

The bird and Orphan Girl looked at each other.

"He's going to be angry," the bird said.

"Yes," Orphan Girl said, "but not for long. Come, Adam. Adam. We’ll show you where he is."

"Thanks," Adam said. The Orphan Girl smiled tremulously.

"Oh!" she said. “Your hand!”

“What?” Adam looked down, and dropped his stick in surprise. Blood smeared across his palm and dripped down the top of the staff. One of the knots had cut into his hand; part of the wood was still lodged there, white among red.  

It didn’t hurt until he saw it, and then it hurt a lot.

“Here,” Orphan Girl said. She pulled a small, lacy handkerchief from one of the pockets of her skirt and pressed it towards him eagerly, one hand clamping down around his wrist.

“It’s fine,” Adam said stiffly, pulling his hand away. He accepted the handkerchief, though, using it to mop up the worst of the blood before plucking the splinter from the wound.

It came away easily enough, and Adam stared at it stupidly for a few seconds before realizing that it was a tooth.

"Welcome to dreams," the bird said, and laughed.

    

 

_“Oh, god.”_

_“Blue, go get me the first aid kit.”_

_“What --”_

_“Now! ...Thank you. He’ll be fine, we just have to keep pressure on it for a bit.”_

_“What happened?”_

_“Something cut him in the dream world. Something powerful.”_

  


As they walked the mushrooms grew around their feet until Adam’s legs were calf-deep in red, and the tangled metal outcroppings swelled from lumps to mounds to hills. The trees dwindled and disappeared. Soon, they were threading their way through valleys between rust and chrome walls.

“Stay on the path,” Orphan Girl warned, looking pointedly at Adam’s bare feet. “There’s nothing pointy on the path.”

Adam, who had plenty of experience with the dangers of rusted metal, nodded.

The bird -- named Moonshine, for whatever reason -- crowed derisively and took flight. The sky was the blank grey of faded asphalt. The air stirred, disturbing the greasy heat.

They passed a jagged pile of crumpled cars that leaked sluggish smoke from their exposed engines and skirted the edge of a factory turned inside out, bleeding pipes and gears and crude black oil. Orphan Girl kept stopping to look behind or peek around corners, which didn’t help Adam’s skittering pulse. He kept remembering the thing in the forest -- it had followed him then, near-silent, invisible -- what was stopping it from finding him again? And what else was lurking in Ronan’s brain?

They turned another corner, spores spiralling behind them, and stopped abruptly. The mushrooms ended, baring a circle of hard-packed earth around a mammoth of a hill. No -- a building. In the harsh curves and pointed edges and spiral-cracked, tinted glass Adam could see a loose pattern of windows and balconies. The front was dominated by black double-doors, from which came the low drone of hymns like distant, pounding bass.

“A church,” he murmured, staring up at the grand front spire. Moonshine circled it lazily a few times and perched above the doorway. She froze completely in place, beady eyes focused straight ahead: a gargoyle, guarding her cathedral.

“I can’t go in,” Orphan Girl said, hugging herself. Her face crumpled, small mouth forming a perfect pout.

“Why?”

She gestured at the doors.

“I exist where Ronan’s dreaming meets the greater dreaming. That’s the way into him -- the core of him, the stuff he doesn’t see. Not in dreams, anyway.”

Adam swallowed, and looked again at the church. The savage beauty of it was all harsh, inhospitable warning: do not enter. This species is poisonous. It was a what happened when a briar patch had sex with a cathedral and abandoned the child in a junkyard. It was, in short, very Ronan.

And yet. Adam remembered Matthew’s dimpled smile and hand lotion that smelled like mist and moss. The cluster of white-gold flowers he found once on his floor after Ronan stayed over. He said,

“Is it safe?” And knew instantly that the question was a pointless one. Orphan Girl shrugged.

“It’s his mind,” she said. “He doesn’t let anyone in. Not even the other one.” The way that she said ‘other one’ made it very clear that she doesn’t approve of them. “I think that’s how minds are supposed to be. I don’t know. I don’t know anyone else’s.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably. His feet were cold against the spongy earth. Cold and damp. The repercussions of entering Ronan’s head were starting to sink in, permeating the layers of determination and panic that had settled over Adam that morning.

As if reading his thoughts, Orphan Girl said,

“You have no choice, right? This has to happen?”

Adam swallowed. Somehow, he doubted Ronan would see it that way. And what right did he have, to go barging through someone’s subconscious? He looked at his hands -- skinny, awkward, good for engines and pencils and not much else.

Then he looked at the door.

“Yes,” he said. “I have to get him back.”

Orphan Girl smiled a small, nervous smile.

The doors swung open at a touch, and closed silently behind Adam as he walked. Inside, the church looked almost completely nothing like Saint Agnes. It was Saint Agnes, the dream logic told Adam with utmost certainty, but it didn’t look like it. The pews were high-backed and divided into individual seats, cushioned with polished black leather. The light was gold and heavy, almost tangible. The windows it streamed through were filled with saints.

Adam stepped slowly down the aisle, footsteps swallowed by the carpeted floor. Muffled hymns trickled from the speakers that framed the sanctuary and sat embeded in the ground beneath each pew. They sounded almost familiar. He wondered if Ronan ever hummed along with the choir during mass.

The pulpit, when he reached it, was a deceptively simple thing. A black wooden monolith, it was exactly the right height for Adam to read the massive book stretched open on it: _Pater noster, qui es in caelis… i-halgeed be thi nome…_

He reached out to touch the onionskin page, then yanked his hand back when the black words surged across the paper to meet him, purring with excitement. Well. That was… disquieting. He blushed, for reasons he wasn’t entirely sure about, and turned away.

The back wall was dominated by a life-sized crucifix, hidden mostly in the deep, red shadows. Adam caught a glimpse of a clenched hand, the jut of a carved hip. Broken glass woven into a crown of thorns.

“Arrogant, isn’t he?”

“Fucking hell!” Adam exclaimed, jumping. He grimaced as whoever it was began to laugh. Did no one in Ronan’s brain know how to fucking introduce themselves?

“Who the hell are --” he began, swinging round. At first, he thought the room was empty. Then he noticed a hand draped up around a headrest, three rows back, where the laughter came from.

“Slow on the uptake, aren’t you, Parrish?” said the voice, deep and drawling, and Adam knew.

“Fuck,” he said again, as Joseph Kavinsky rose up from between the pews. “Fuck, you’re dead.”

Kavinsky laughed again. He was wearing his sunglasses and a white wifebeater tank; his dark hair was ruffled in a way that only convertibles and expensive products could produce. He said,

“No fucking shit, Sherlock. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of genius kid?”

“I’m smart enough not to get fried by a goddamn dragon, if that’s what you mean,” Adam said. “How are you here?”

Kavinsky stepped into the aisle and put his hands in his pockets. He shrugged.

“What is a dreamer when he’s a dream?” He said philosophically. “Fuckface Mcgee -- Ronan, to you -- just couldn’t let me go. Well, not me, him, because I am not myself. I am an echo of a memory of the bitchingest king of the dragrace. Faggot lord of the streets -- you getting this, Parrish? Taking notes, trailer boy?”

Adam’s fingernails dug crescents into his palms.

“Then you’re nothing,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “You’re just another one of Ronan’s dream creations. You don’t exist.”

Kavinsky’s grin widened. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, holding it between his fingers like a 1920s femme fatale.

“Look at that,” he said, blowing smoke and gesturing at the crucifix. “Look at that asshole. Look what he makes. Self righteous fucker.”

Against his better instincts, Adam turned and walked towards the figure until its bloody feet were level with his eyes. He looked up; it was frighteningly detailed, every vein, every pore cast in bronze. The metal limbs were contorted in obvious pain, and the face -- Adam’s eyes traced the sharp, angled cheekbones, the delicate slash of the mouth. Unlike the rest of his body, Ronan’s face was serene. Sleeping.

“The rest of your weird loser cult is here, too,” Kavinsky said. “Dick III makes a fantastic window.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t smashed it,” Adam replied. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the statue. It almost looked like it was breathing. Adam wondered, if it was alive, if it would scream. If he would have to pull Ronan down by cutting off his hands or sawing through the boards. How long it would take him to die. How much he would bleed.

“Oh,” Kavinsky said cheerfully, “I’ve tried. I ran a motorcycle through here, once. Nothing happened. Eh, I mean, the motorcycle exploded, but.”

“Fucking hell.” Adam rubbed his forehead with his palm and pressed his fingers against his eyes.

“Yup,” Kavinsky said, popping the word like bubblegum.

“Look,” Adam snapped, turning back to Kavinsky, “I’m just -- I’m just here for Ronan, ok? So if you know where he is, please tell me, and if not, just. Leave me alone.”

“Parrish,” Kavinsky said, taking another draw on his cigarette and looking insufferably pleased with himself. “Parrish, Parrish, Parrish. Parrish, you complete fucking dumbass, you are _literally inside him right now.”_

Adam bit back a scream. Now Kavinsky was wiggling his eyebrows, and damn if he didn’t want to punch him in his smug fucking face. That was what Ronan would have done. But Ronan wasn’t there, and it was Adam’s job to be the reasonable one. Stay calm, he told himself. Stay calm and get out.

“His consciousness is missing,” he ground out. “So I am going to get it back. If you don’t know where it is --”

“Oh, yeah. I know where it is.” Kavinsky blew a cloud of smoke at Adam’s face. “I know where part of it is, anyway. Useless piece of shit.”

See? Adam thought. When you stay calm, you get results. He forced his hands to unclench.

“Will you show me where he is?”

“Yeah,” Kavinsky said slowly, narrowing his eyes. He put his cigarette out on the back of one of the pews. “Yeah, I think I will.”

He strode down the aisle, bumping his shoulder against Adam’s as he passed him, and crossed the sanctuary to the left side of the back wall. Chewing on his anger, Adam followed. There was a door there, one that looked completely out of place in the sleek black and gold church. The metal was pitted and bent, like it had survived a bombing, or a forest fire.

“You ready, trailer trash?” Kavinsky said, grabbing the handle. It groaned pathetically as it turned.

“Yes,” Adam bit out. Kavinsky laughed.

“No, you’re not,” he said, and opened the door.

 

  



End file.
